The intellectual and political degeneration of the "progressive"
wing of the Democratic party continues apace, as Tom Watson – a prominent spokesman
for the movement – attacks
the upcoming "Stop Watching Us"
rally, to be held in Washington this coming weekend (Saturday, October 26).
Although he claims to support the goals of the rally – more on that later –
he writes:

"Yet I cannot support this coalition or the rally. It is fatally compromised by the prominent leadership and participation of the Libertarian Party and other libertarian student groups; their hard-core ideology stands in direct opposition to almost everything I believe in as a social democrat."

The reasoning behind Watson’s sectarianism is ostensibly ideological: he goes
through the hate-on-libertarians mantra, so familiar to readers of Salon.com,
including our opposition to the welfare state, gun control, Obama-care, and,
oddly – for an alleged progressive – he cites with horror the Libertarian Party
platform which calls for "unrestricted competition among banks and depository
institutions of all types."

There’s more libertarian-baiting in Watson’s screed – the equivalent, for Salon
readers, of progressive porn – in which he reels off supposedly horrifying examples
of the libertarians’ transgressive politics. I won’t bore my readers with the
gory details, beyond remarking on the crudity of Watson’s smears: does he really
believe libertarians are "infatuated with Mussolini"?

The incredibly weak argument that libertarianism is somehow a cleverly disguised variety of fascism is supplemented by an even weaker stab at a strategic argument: Watson opines that by associating with these Very Bad People "the loss is much greater than the gain." How does that calculus work out, exactly? Well, you see, simply by standing on a stage with these subversive elements, progressives "convey legitimacy" to libertarians – as if Watson and his fellow progressives are the Final Arbiters of Legitimacy.

It’s a weird conceit, but to be expected coming from those who see themselves as being in power, with Obama in the White House and the Democratic party in (temporary) ascendancy. And just for color, Watson throws in the argument that libertarians are really the political equivalent of child molesters: "And [the progressives’] own argument for privacy is weakened by the pollution of an ideology that uses its few positive civil liberties positions as a predator uses candy with a child." Nice.

This last fusillade, with its unpleasant – indeed, downright libelous – over-the-top implications, hints that something more is at stake here. Another agenda is at work, which – sure enough – comes out in the next paragraph:

"This is an abandonment of core principles, in my view, out of anger over Edward Snowden’s still-recent revelations about the National Security Agency and its spying activity, particularly domestic access to telephone and online networks and metadata. It represents trading long-held beliefs in social and economic justice for a current hot-button issue that – while clearly of concern to all Americans – doesn’t come close to trumping a host of other issues areas that require ‘the long game’ of electoral politics and organizing."

Translation: Progressives are reacting emotionally and irrationally Snowden’s
revelation that the Obama administration is spying on the American people and
setting up a police state apparatus. It’s really not that big a deal, especially
when weighed against all the Big Government initiatives so dear to Watson’s
social democratic heart. Who cares if we’re all being spied on? Never mind that
man behind the curtain! Just keep your eye on the prize – "the long game"
of establishing a social democratic utopia in America.

The punch-line for this joke of an argument is:

"[T]he presence of anti-government laissez-faire wingers at the beating heart of the privacy movement will surely sour the very political actors that movement desperately needs to make actual – and not symbolic, link bait – progress in its fight.

"I speak of the progressive movement and the Democratic Party, of course."

Few progressive critics of the rising civil libertarian movement frame their polemics in such nakedly partisan terms, and Watson is clearly performing a public service in exposing his own motives so brazenly. The government’s spying operation uncovered by Snowden and overwhelmingly opposed by the American people is clearly a huge political embarrassment not only for this President but also for his party. And they are not backing down in supporting their Dear Leader. As Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who has done the most to expose the NSA’s Panopticon to public view, points out: the Democratic party and its political and ideological chieftains are the biggest defenders of the NSA today.

The weakness of Watson’s argument finally causes it to collapse completely when he writes:

"For those whose feet still touch the ground, the path to NSA reform so clearly lies inside the Democrats’ big tent – and runs through its liberal wing. And because we are a liberal republic, whose central government is not leaving the landscape anytime soon (the libertarians’ fondest goal), change must also run through an elected Congress."

Gee, now I could be wrong – along with every news outlet that reported on the matter – but wasn’t it a libertarian Republican, one Justin Amash, who introduced legislation that almost defunded the NSA’s unconstitutional snooping, barely losing by a mere 16 votes? And wasn’t it Nancy Pelosi, one of the most visible and vocal leaders of the Democratic party, and former Speaker of the House, who lobbied relentlessly against the Amash bill? Indeed, Pelosi headed off a trans-partisan civil libertarian coalition in Congress – the same one reflected on the speakers platform shared by libertarians and pro-privacy progressives this coming weekend – by mobilizing Obama-loyal "progressives" who de-prioritize civil liberties in the same way and for the same reasons as Watson. If it were up to Watson, the Amash bill – supported by a very broad congressional coalition stretching from the Ron Paul Republicans to the Alan Grayson left-populist types – would never have come as close as it did to passing: indeed, it would never have made it to the floor.

Which is exactly Watson’s desired outcome, in spite of his ostensible support for the programmatic demands of "Stop Watching Us." As he puts it:

"Political change requires choices and compromise, as well as action. If too many young organizers focus entirely on privacy and security and abandon the front lines on crucial economic issues, civil rights and inequality, the rights of workers, criminal justice reform, environmental regulation, and the pursuit social justice, their gains will be too little and society’s loss too great."

Watson wants "young organizers" to stop focusing on those libertarian-oriented issues like privacy: America’s emerging police state is a marginal issue when compared to "the pursuit of social justice."

In short, you don’t have to stop watching us – if you give us free stuff. This is really the essence of Watsonism.

Watson is consistent: you have to give him credit for that. He is a longtime
enemy of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, having devoted thousands of words to
attacking Assange’s character, actions, and politics. “WikiLeaks is resolutely
anti-engagement, anti-development, anti-cooperation, and anti-peace," he
declares, “And virulently to its very DNA, anti-democratic." According
to Watson, Assange was little more than a tool of the Taliban for releasing
supposedly vital US intelligence on Afghanistan – and never withdrew his charge
when it became clear that not a single US soldier was ever endangered by WikiLeaks

Instead, he escalated his attacks on the pioneer whistleblowing organization,
denouncing
Assange when the WikiLeaks founder went on "Russia Today" to interview
the leader of Hezbollah: not only was he a tool of Putin, but also a tool of
The Terrorists. According
to Watsonian "logic," Assange revealing the secrets of governments
is just like Rupert Murdoch’s reporters hacking into the phones of private individuals.
The years-long state persecution of Assange that forced him to seek asylum is
described
by Watson as a "self-inflicted hibernation" in Ecuador’s embassy.
As you might imagine, Watson really
went ballistic when Assange described the libertarian wing of the Republican
party as America’s last best hope.

Watson hates Edward Snowden almost as much as he despises Assange: when Snowden sought asylum in Venezuela, Watson joined with various neoconservatives in snarking on Twitter:

Here’s hoping Edward #Snowden can bring the same national conversation on surveillance state to Venezuela that he has to the U.S.

Disparaging Snowden’s revelations as "sensationalistic," mischaracterizing
Glenn Greenwald’s reporting on NSA data collection as "allowing instant
domestic surveillance of millions of people every minute,"Watson here
takes the line that it’s much ado about nothing. In the same Forbes piece,
he claims Greenwald’s charge that Obama has been the President hardest on whistleblowers
is "hard to judge accurately": apparently the sheer number of Espionage
Act prosecutions of whistleblowers undertaken by this administration – more than all other Presidents combined – fails to impress him. To top it
off, he complains that Snowden’s actions "haven’t created the kind of unified
networked moment that typified the rise of WikiLeaks, the case of US Army Private
Bradley Manning, or the Occupied movement" – but now that such a network
has come into being, and is even holding a Washington rally, he’s against it!

While in his Salon piece Watson claims to be an admirer of Glenn Greenwald,
he viciously attacks
him for his "angry scorn for Obama – and for liberals who dare to disagree
with his pure civil libertarianism." Greenwald, we are told, uses "ridiculously
divisive language" – unlike someone who likens his ideological opponents
to pedophiles.

But there’s more than an ideological motive at work here: Watson’s attempt to smear the burgeoning civil libertarian movement and the campaign against America’s emerging police state complements his professional and financial interests. Watson is the founder and CEO of "CauseWired," a consulting firm with a vague mission of "social activism," one that touts its nonprofit credentials but also has some pretty heavy-hitting corporate clients.

Among these is a company specializing in managing philanthropic donations for big corporations, the "JK Group," which, as one source puts it, is in possession of "unsurpassed payment processing and global legal compliance capabilities, including the USA Patriot Act and a wide range of international regulations."

A whole industry now exists centered around Patriot Act compliance – and, of
course, owes its very existence to such legislation. Repeal of the Act would
put an end to this little niche of rent-collecting parasites, and Watson could
lose a client – unless, of course, he can launch an online "activist"
campaign to head such a movement off at the pass. One of the JK Group’s big
clients is Wells
Fargo – which perhapsexplains Watson’s horror
at the libertarian proposal that banks should actually compete with one another.

Watson is the ultimate fraud: a "progressive" who shills for the
Surveillance State, a supposed "online activist for social change"
who disdains the really existing online movement for social change. He’s a partisan
sock puppet – here
he hails Obama as the conqueror of Afghanistan – one with some dicey connections
and an authoritarian mindset that clearly identifies him as an enemy of liberty.

Only a broad-based left-right coalition can bring down the Surveillance State,
restore the Constitution, and smash the authoritarian axis of absolutism that
runs from "social democrats" like Watson on the left all the way to
neocons like Bill Kristol and the Cheneyites on the right. The sectarians at
Salon have been running their anti-libertarian campaign for months now, along
with the Regimists at MSNBC and the "mainstream" media outlets so
recently enamored of "moderate" Republicans like racist bigot Rep.
Peter King and Gov. Chris Christie, who thinks libertarians are "dangerous."
But they are on the wrong side of history: a new generation is arising, one
that is challenging the Establishment of both parties and leaping over the constraints
of the outmoded "left/right" paradigm. Now that’s a real movement
for "social change" – one that is rolling over sectarians like Watson
and leaving them in the dust.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

You can check out my Twitter feed by going here.
But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often
made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.

Why socialist can't have nice things is because of corporatist enablers and not because of classical liberals. Watson is using fear and keywords to shutdown brains. I think libertarianism successes are the result of the failures of the ruling ideologies and because it speaks to America's classical liberal heart. Regardless their policies will have to work or people will look for other solutions. He is admitting defeat because he is arguing that the left should hide from libertarians and submit to corporatist enablers. They can't change the minds of libertarians if they refuse to interact with them. If people want change they need to peacefully make their demands known like they did on Syria.

Libertarians at heart builds on personal convictions. The rulers on self-congratulation. A presidents speeches tends always into self-conratulation.

They believe, that is the order of things. Basically a mindless conviction, then perhaps some aspects of the world can be brought in to bolster the picture. Reality must be accepted, when it fits into the BIG COMMON UNSPECIFIED plan. Metaphysics outside of reality, like some God.

If the politician should just come out from reality, he might be defeated by new knowledge, for instance. But this earthly religion – certainly NOT EVEN A DOCTRINE lifts him above that!

Justin,
There is a powerful populist movement starting in this country and Tom Watson is not part of it. I like to call myself a progressive but you could also call me a "teacup" if you wish. This "populist movement is made up of people who no longer buy the corporate empire propaganda. We no longer believe that the rich should pay no taxes, or that this country needs to bomb the World to be safe, or that health care should go only to those able to pay for it, or that those who belong to the "Lucky Sperm" club should live large while others live in the streets.
I was a Libertarian for a long time until I realized that -"yes, I am my brother's keeper". Libertarianism is unfortunately too juvenile and selfish to work; lots of its advocates are those who just got lucky and now have something and don't want to share. I feel confident that Ayn Rand was never affected by anything in Matthew's Gospel.
The Tom Watson are not worthy of your attention – the Koch Brothers, the Jamie Diamonds, etc. are.

In his work "The German Ideology," Marx referred to 'communism' as a state of society where the wants of the individual have become indistinguishable from the common interest. This is ostensibly how the curse of scarcity is lifted. The idea was not new with Marx. However, prior to Marx, it usually took the form of religious utopianism. Marx's 'accomplishment' was to secularize it—give it a faux scientific inevitability by replacing divine prophecy with "historical materialism."

With Marx's intellectual apologia in mind, many conceded authority and personal sovereignty to governments that claimed the intention of establishing just such an ideal 'communist' society. The tragic result last century was the deaths of hundreds of millions of people.

Simply put, the politician's desire to spend other people's money is not motivated by compassion, regardless of what he might claim. If the politician's desire to spend other people's money were motivated by compassion, he wouldn't be using the threat of imprisonment and death to take it from them.

The philosophy of Ayn Rand was simple. Individuals who seek their own self interest create the opportunity for "my brother's keeper" to seek his self interest and so on. Introducing the institution
of government intervention into this process results in mal-investment and distorts and corrupts the process. Government is the enabler. All the others are just players in the great game of corruption.

The difference between you and libertarians is that you think that big brother will solve everything. You need to follow the stats a little closer, big government has created more difference between rich and poor not only at home but worldwide, and it has almost abliterated the middle class. There is no evidence that big givernment is making us safer, richer as a people, solving the rich vs poor issues, or other enequties in the system. It solves one problem and creates three new bigger ones, and then taxes us for that service.

ATM,
No, I don't think that "big brother will solve everything" – I am just sure human beings can come up with a better system than a jungle environment wherein the big eat the next smaller who then eat the next smaller, ad nauseam. I have lived for 71 years and I feel safe in saying that the time period between FDR's New Deal until the Horses–t Cowboy's, "Morning in America Deal" were good, decent years for America. As it is, this 21st Century era of corruption, greed, and "f–k the hindmost" , will end in revolution. But don't pay any attention to some old guy, just drink your Kool-Aid.

Excellent article about this statist stooge Watson and his faux progressivism. He is a shill for the Obama cult and a much more hidden and sinister social-fascist agenda. He only pays lip service to privacy concerns in order to masquerade as someone on the right side of this issue, only to worm and undermine opposition to omnipresent government spying now so unpopular.
Watson is a stealth priest of the religion of Statism, pure and simple. He uses whatever label works best for him. The idea of being in a coalition on a specific issue with anyone denying the basic tenents of his True Religion is anathema to him. This naked opportunist/witch doctor is a common type. The louder he howls at the truth, the more we are assured that statism is intellectually on the run in popular culture. HIs howls should be sweet music to our ears.

Yes, it will end in revolution. The question is what kind. A revolution in the ideas of liberty
where voluntary exchange, free association, respect for private property rights is my choice.
Your description of a jungle environment wherein the big eat the next is what we have now.
By the way, I am 69 and see the evolution from FDR to Obama as the jungle environment.

Marx was a historian of economy, and people who criticize him never read any of his works, expecially densely writen The Capital. If we try, we will understand that our era of capitalism is an outgrowth of the late feudalism. The system of priviledges annointed on elites results in enroumous unearned wealth. Once in a while, American elite understood the deal, and similarly to old feudal rules — attached responsibilties to priviledge. It was done though high taxes on high unearned wealth, requiring reinvestment of the loot, so that social responsibilties were discharged as well. But every now and then, robber barons return. todays global financial barons confiscated and looted public resources, with ZERO responsiblity. Society is predictably falling appart, including the very ability of robber barons to make money. Take heed of Marx rules, and here is one. EXCESS PROFIT UNDERMINES PROFITABILITY. China knows capitalism. Money collected through taxes, royalties and fees using public goods and services, royalties from public commons, underground resources — all treated as VALUABLE, and carefully managed on behalf of public investor, the people. This is why China is a capitalist growing country, and we are stuck in feudal system of priviledges. .

As much as I agree with libertarians on many issues — libertarians fall very short on economy and public policy.

For as long as we all REFUSE to understand that our capitalist system is nothing but a terminally ill, dressed up feudalism, we cannot understand the role of the "state". We today have priviledged corporate feudal lords — our "elite", their soothsayers, court jesters, and so on. But WHERE is the sovereign? The rogue feudal lords have instead become the "state", becoming the royal Court, dispensing in the old feudal manner the priviledges, OUR public goods, on wars, mistreses, or foreign intrigue. The priviledges, the money and power are dispensed to crony businesses, intellectual elite and security apparatus close to royal Court.

"Less state" is the battle banner of the feudal court. People have become nothing but feudal subjects, and have no control over anything. How is "state' the enemy, instead those that have hijacked it? And we want LESS restraint, and more FEUDAL POWERS to the cronies of the Court? We must be mad.

Mike and Ralph,
Obviously neither of you has any experience in being a blue-collar worker or being raised in a blue-collar family. And trust me, I have learned a lot in my years – I went to school on the GI Bill and got a degree in physics, ran my own manufacturing business with a dozen employees for years, ran for Congress several times as a Libertarian, belonged to Mensa, did a lot of charitable work, etc. But enough about me – what are your credentials that allow you to twist my thoughts and call me names?

A parting shot for all of you Dr. Pangloss libertarian boosters who think that the country has improved since Reagan and his "Morning in America" freed the predatory John Galts to do their Atlas Shrugging; Paul Craig Roberts ( no pathetic little liberal punk himself) just wrote an article entitled, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap" which describes a corrupt, played-out America that is about to be abandoned by the rest of the World and devolving into a real jungle where Homeland Defense will consist of shooting lower class Americans rioting from deprivation. "Morning in America" HUH, more like "Mourning in America".

We need the government to take away their power yet it is what gives them their power and allows for them to exist. Government is like a position in a war which the people have lost control over. Is it a good idea to concentrate power at one spot or disperse it?

I bet we could come up with a list of things and examples showing what the US government does that benefits corporations at the people's expense. The government is interested in protecting profits and lowering costs for corporations even when it includes its own citizenry. It is like immigration policy because corporations are trying to undercut the American worker while they are protected, and this leads to a lot of the opposition to immigration because the workers know they are being screwed.

I'm far from a libertarian, but I marched with anti-NSA protesters in San Francisco on July 4th to "Restore the Fourth". Many of them were libertarian and organized through the Electronic Frontier Foundation and reddit. We may disagree on many things, but as a leftist, I am in agreement with them on this, as I am in opposition to the war on drugs, so I marched with them. If we want to stop governmental activities like this, it requires a coalition of people in the real world, not working inside a "big tent" with elected Democrats who have no interest in doing anything about it.

Many, many thanks for the links. I am "libertarian" more by instinct then by scholarship, and the material you attached is at the heart of my confusion. Problem is the terminology. Libertarians need new language, as the existing one is too limited or too broad — allowing for elasticity of use and abuse.

Why is it so hard to get the terminology developed to get libertarians a real platform, as opposed becoming a vessel into which corporatist democrats, and a whole lots more corporatist republicans place their beloved content.

It cannot stay like this. Libertarians need to answer the questions of social RESPONSIBILITY and with it ACCOUNTABILITY. Those things are not free for all. Politicians love shoving everything into private sector, for as long as sheepish population does not ask questions about the responsibility, and even less about social accountability. Look at Fukushima. Look at epidemic of school violence. Look at the financial fraud that is fracking. Libertarians sound like they are being nostalgic for simpler times. Decentralizing is the solution, but without strategy libertarians are falling prey to corporate vultures — democrat or republican.

I respect the number of times you have made the trip around the sun. With time and thoughtfulness comes wisdom. Not sure if I qualify as blue collar worker, but I ran a farm at nineteen, which makes me a bit of a biologist, physicist, chemist, with a fair share of common since. later I went to school on the gi bill and I have had good success given an uncommon love for mathematics. Every movement has a reason. Libertarian movement would have never taken root in the reasonably well run new deal governments such as the ones that existed in the 40s 50s and early 60s. Governments that were capable of balancing the budget, national, and international interests. If the democrats and the republicans could be trusted to work for the people the libertarians as a party would disappear. I think Most libertarian would be quite satisfied to turn the clock back to the golden years of the new deal, they would in fact be ecstatic. How about you?

We Progressives *are* the arbiters of legitimacy, in this case. You see, most of the industrialized world thinks like us, while no country on earth thinks like Libertarians. You guys are a joke, outside the USA and you need us Progressives FAR more than we need you.

In the “Communist Manifesto,” Marx describes the conflict between “free man and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild master and journeyman,” as a ‘class conflict.’ He conspicuously does not describe any of this as raw political privilege—the privilege to thwart property rights.

Instead, his thesis (elaborated in “Capital,” volume 1, chapter 4) is that property rights in themselves are exploitation. Specifically, he argues that ownership of the means of production (i.e. capital) is the way the “surplus value” of labor is transferred from proletariat to bourgeoisie.
What little Marx pretended to contribute to economics has long since been refuted by both logic and history, and is even usually ignored by modern self-described Marxists. Instead, in defense of their religious convictions, they work very hard to conflate the money made by politically-privileged “financial barrons” with the work of capitalism (properly defined).

Marx’s real goal was to set the proletariat against the bourgeoisie in the service of the political and financial elite, the ones who parasitically feed off the plebeian via the government authority the plebeian are so easily fooled into surrendering. Marx has, for the most part, ben relegated to the dustbin of history, but he has unfortunately been replaced by Keynes, who, instead of demonizing owners of capital, demonizes savers. He provides intellectual cover for those who would claim the privilege of printing money, for the greater good of course.

I only provide all this commentary because I consider Marx to be one of the most treacherous villains in all of human history.

Le sigh. Those mean ole lefties who pretend to oppose surveillance are just doing it to score brownie points with the masses, of course. After all, without their intrusion into our bank accounts and financial records, our personal business endeavors, etc then how could they continue to fund their beloved leviathan?

WRONG WRONG WRONG. It is NOT the market, but the STATE, that empowers these corporations that you rightfully deride. In a free marketplace, they do not enjoy any special privileges that you or I do not and hence they do not come to exist because they are kept small by competing interests. It is only the state that affords the the exemptions, subsides, special legal treatment, and regulatory state that chokes out their would-be competition. The "feudal" stuff that you keep bringing in, I fear, is just conjecture that mostly detracts from the meaningful discussion that could take place here, but I feel that the gang of individuals in DC and elsewhere who demand the fruits of my labor at the point of a gun by virtue of the fact that I earned it on "their territory" far better approximates feudalism.

American progressives are a total political fraud. Cut through all their "antiwar" or "civil liberties" posturing, they are at base one thing: the Liberal wing of the American Empire.

Tom Watson and other Democratic Party hacks and media mouthpieces are the living example of these phony progressives.

Obamazoids like Watson are attempting to infiltrate the anti-NSA movement in order to co-opt it for the Democratic Party.

Below is an insightful analysis of what the American Progressive Movement(TM) is really about. It documents how progressives in fact are funded and serve the interests of the liberal wing of the American Establishment like the Democratic Party. And it analyzes how these progressives have co-opted and manipulated specific movements like Antiwar protests and Occupy Wall Street–not to mention promoting one of the greatest Progressive scams of them all: the Huckster of Hope and Change, Barack Obama.

"The Progressive Movement is a PR Front for Rich Democrats"? Please name some of these rich Democratic backers of socialized health care, re-industrialization of America, anti-militarization of our society, promotion of a fairer Mid East foreign policy, fairer tax policies, etc. I don't believe such people exist. The closest that I can name that you may have in mind are George Soros and the Clintons, and Pelosi; the first is a predatory money grubber and the other three are handmaidens to the other rich money grubbers. Now, if you are thinking about a Ralph Nader or a Thom Hartmann, or a Bernie Sanders, who are all progressives – well calling them "rich Democrats" is not accurate.

As a long time reader of Antiwar Dot Com and even a longer time progressive and Marxist, I applaud your column on Watson and think it is spot on. I would love to argue with you and your readers over any number of idiocies you espouse, but when it comes to the the current state of civil liberties in this country (a state of 24/7 surveillance) we have no choice but to stand together on the ample common ground that exists. Watson's screed advances the War Party's goals through his little divide and conquer game.

Of course, this is why many, many are trying very hard to "get" this libertarian thing. There are libertarian issues many can strongly support. Myself included. But many are wondering, given the murkiness of the economic message — are we really supporting another robber-baron behind the curtain? We all saw what happened to Hope/Change. We all saw the derailing of Tea Party and its transformation into imperial clones.

Now, I get it, State enables the corporations. Get it. But without state and in an anarchy, robber-barons will have us in dungeons working for stale bread and dirty water. Now, should I trust the "markets".? Please enlighten me — but I have never in history seen a case of free markets. Markets are not forces of nature, but creature of men. And its main moving force is gain. And wherever you have gain involved, there will be human fingers. How many money-sucking "opportunities" were along the Silk Road "market"? Nothing is new today. So, somebody makes rules. Who? The state?

This is about a coalition to stop NSA surveillance. If you are "trying very hard to "get" this libertarian thing" before getting involved, you are making it far too complicated for yourself.
You don't have to be a libertarian to participate. You just have to participate *with* them, just like you have to associate with a variety to people from different backgrounds to achieve any immediate political objective in the US.

Or, you can just sit on the sidelines, and argue with libertarians while Democrats and Republicans keep concentrating more and more within themselves and their 1% friends.

Well at least libtards don't go masquerading as some kinda booming intellects in the manner of Keynes and Friedman. One purveyor of "politicheskaya economica" was quite enough for me thank you very much

Watson and his ilk are not "liberals" or "progressives". They can best be described as Obama whores.
All evidence indicates that they would continue to support him, blindly and unthinkingly, which is the only way to do it, even if he violated a five year old girl on the steps of the White House.

"In short, you don’t have to stop watching us – if you give us free stuff:"

Ah, nice. Thanks for that little bit of "hate on liberals" stuff. Nice to see you stooping to the level of your opponents. Kinda goes hand in hand with saying that Bush's NSA and Homeland Security policies are all Obama's fault. Gosh, that super villain is so powerful.

For you clueless: liberals do not want "free stuff". They want more efficient economic growth for the country, and the way to get more efficient economic growth is to prevent the owners of capital from over-exploiting labor and using commons in an unsustainable fashion.

Economics trumps freedom. If you don't have money, you aren't free. Working with libertarians is impossible because they are such idiots on the most important problem. As Eric Schmidt likes to say: "More revenue solves all problems." Libertarians also want to get rid of government and allow unelected strong men to be in control instead. Doesn't seem real useful. The only possible way to make sense of libertarians is that they must have some weird utopian fantasy that we can each live in the Garden of Eden so that cooperation is not important and we can each be selfish and indulgent and not be controlled by others who are more powerful.

Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute. He is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, and writes a monthly column for Chronicles. He is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993; Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000], and An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard [Prometheus Books, 2000].